and reached
deftly in without disturbing the child and took out a package--and then
another. He straightened up, a bundle of crisp new hundred-dollar notes
in each hand--and on the top of one, slipped under the elastic band that
held the bills together, an unsealed envelope. He drew out the latter,
and opened it--it was a second-class steamship passage to Vera Cruz,
made out in a fictitious name, of course, to John Davies, the booking
for next day's sailing. From the ticket, from the stolen money, Jimmie
Dale's eyes lifted to rest again on the little golden head, the smiling
lips--and then, dropping the packages into his pockets, his own lips
moving queerly, he turned abruptly to the door.

"My God, the shame of it!" he whispered to himself.

He crept down the corridor, past the open door of the room where the
young woman still sat fast asleep, and, his mask in his pocket again,
stepped softly into the vestibule, and from there to the street.

Jimmie Dale hurried now, spurred on it seemed by a hot, insensate fury
that raged within him--there was still one other call to make that
night--still those remaining and minute details in the latter part of
her letter, grim and ugly in their portent!

It was close upon one o'clock in the morning when Jimmie Dale stopped
again--this time before a fashionable dwelling just off Central Park.
And here, for perhaps the space of a minute, he surveyed the house from
the sidewalk--watching, with a sort of speculative satisfaction, a man's
shadow that passed constantly to and fro across the drawn blinds of one
of the lower windows. The rest of the house was in darkness.

"Yes," said Jimmie Dale, nodding his head, "I rather thought so. The
servants will have retired hours ago. It's safe enough."

He ran quickly up the steps and rang the bell. A door opened almost
instantly, sending a faint glow into the hall from the lighted room; a
hurried step crossed the hall--and the outer door was thrown back.

"Well, what is it?" demanded a voice brusquely.

It was quite dark, too dark for either to distinguish the other's
features--and Jimmie Dale's hat was drawn far down over his eyes.

"I want to see Mr. Thomas H. Carling, cashier of the Hudson-Mercantile
National Bank--it's very important," said Jimmie Dale earnestly.

"I am Mr. Carling," replied the other. "What is it?"

Jimmie Dale leaned forward.

"From headquarters--with a report," he said, in a low tone.

"Ah!" exclaimed the ba